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Georgian government denies freezing accounts.

The Government of Georgia categorically denies accusations being circulated by the lobbyists representing Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition claiming that the Government has frozen the bank accounts of the Georgian Dream party or affiliated political parties. No party’s account has been frozen.

A statement by the Government of Georgia said that “Georgian Dream has masterminded a complex web of illegal conduits to channel illegal funds to its campaign, bypassing Georgia’s campaign finance legislation. Georgian dream coalition leaders publicly announced that they would not abide by the law several time.

In several cases, the Audit Chamber has succeeded in building solid legal cases that have led the courts to fine the Georgian Dream and its coalition partners for clear-cut violations of the Georgian campaign finance legislation.

In the specific case raised by Georgian Dream’s lobbyists, The National Bureau of Enforcement (NBE) enforces the writs issued on the Tbilisi City Court decision of June 27, 2012. The Court found members of the political coalition Georgian Dream in violation of party financing legislation and collectively fined them with GEL 2,850,717.06.

Collection Order allows the NBE to enforce the court decision without freezing the accounts, thus, without interruption of the cash flow or otherwise use of the account. Up to date, only small portion of the fine, 122,000.00 GEL has been collected by the NBE through the Collection Orders.

To be precise, the Georgian Dream has raised officially in the last month 730 000 GEL. Only 17 percent of it has been collected in order to enforce the fine.

In general, since November 1st, 2011, up to July 25th, 2012, the Georgian Dream has raised 44.539.123 GEL (more than 26 millions legally and more than 18 millions identified illegal contributions).

It is therefore not a 122,000 GEL collection of fines (less than 0.3 percent of total income) that can prevent the Georgian Dream coalition from campaigning freely and actively all over the Georgian territory.

Though throughout the campaign the Georgian Dream affiliates have willfully ignored the boundaries of the law and have even publicly claimed to do so.

These false allegations are the latest in a series of attempts by the Georgian Dream to discredit Georgian institutions in advance of the October elections. The Government of Georgia calls on all parties to refrain from the campaign of slander and to focus on electoral objectives rather than trying to preemptively discredit the outcome of the elections.The Government of Georgia will make sure that every single party can compete in an open and transparent campaign.